Doctor Who: Joy to the World – 2024 Christmas special recap | Television

This time final yr we bought our first full-length have a look at Ncuti Gatwa within the position. Quick ahead 12 months, and right here was a person with a season behind him, beaming his approach confidently by means of a narrative that was a mishmash of Christmas film viewing genres, if considerably mild on plot.

On this Steven Moffat-penned story, we bought an motion sequence on a practice, treasure hidden in a stone chamber, a prolonged romcom interlude, and even a dinosaur that apparently pooed out an vital Christmas plot system. There was additionally a robust emotional heartbeat operating by means of it, and there can have been tears earlier than bedtime in lots of a family watching it.

Joel Fry was pleasing as Trev, although the character gave sturdy vibes that it had been written with Richard Ayoade’s awkward Maurice Moss mode in thoughts, relatively than straight for Fry. Nonetheless, he managed to take advantage of his display time. Nichola Coughlan (Pleasure), regardless of sharing top-billing as this yr’s visitor star, was sidelined for a lot of the story. She bought a possibility to indicate her performing chops as a possible villain for some time, after which the extra lovable facet of Coughlan we all know from Derry Women and her real-world social media interventions arrived.

Physician Who Christmas specials have beforehand walked a superb line between utilizing a lot of festive imagery – suppose evil Santas, killer Christmas bushes, robotic angels – however indirectly bringing faith into it. Placing a fantasy supernova because the supply of a vibrant night star above Bethlehem on the daybreak of the primary millennia was actually a daring option to hyperlink the present’s lore straight into the nativity itself.

The centrepiece was the Physician being stranded with Steph de Whalley’s Anita Benn in a resort for a yr as her slow-burn unrequited love for him developed – a vignette that would simply be slipped into Love Truly or 4 Weddings and a Funeral. It isn’t the primary time within the trendy period the Physician has been pressured to consider how lonely his life is and not using a companion, though the actual fact he was gathering miniature police field collectible figurines was a clue to who he was lacking essentially the most.

Life aboard the Tardis

The construction was successfully three consecutive two-handers the place Trev, Anita and Pleasure auditioned to be potential companions, then destiny intervened. At the least Anita ultimately bought a greater job out of it, even when she had her coronary heart crushed alongside the best way.

Concern issue

This was an uncommon episode in not likely having a monster-of-the-week, however the underlying fears right here had been of loneliness, regrets and dying alone. It touched on the true world by displaying the sorts of adverse remoted goodbyes to family members skilled throughout Covid lockdown guidelines by folks like Pleasure, in scenes that had been prone to remind some households of the empty seats round their Christmas dinner tables this yr.

Mysteries and questions

Anticipate Physician Who followers to argue lengthy and arduous about whether or not Gatwa explaining he knew the suitcase code as a result of he was “bootstrapping” was a intelligent meta-nod to earlier criticisms of Steven Moffat’s timey-wimey plotlines, or simply an excessive amount of of a hand-wavey plot comfort to be taken severely. When Pleasure requested the Physician if folks often really really feel any higher after the Time Lord has defined issues, it may have been the followers talking on to the previous showrunner about precisely this sort of behavior of his.

Deeper into the vortex

• There have been a lot of callbacks to earlier issues the Physician has stated, like having to go “the great distance spherical”, and the concept dwelling their life in the future after an one other was an journey they might by no means have, echoing well-known speeches from Gatwa’s predecessors in Day of the Physician (2013), Dragonfire (1987) and Doomsday (2006).

• The fifteenth Physician – with out his trusty time machine – visited New York in 2025 with a purpose to return to the Time Resort. In The Angels Take Manhattan (2012) he stated he may by no means take the Tardis there once more, because the “timelines are too scrambled” and visiting “would rip New York aside”.

• Pleasure’s mum was within the Royal Hope hospital in central London, which was transported to the moon and again through the occasions of Smith and Jones (2007).

• The fifteenth Physician stated he was “good with rope”, a callback to studying the rope know-how on the goblin vessel in The Church on Ruby Highway (2023).

• Villengard and its weapons factories have featured in a number of Moffat-penned episodes, together with his first story for the revived 2005 collection, The Empty Youngster/The Physician Dances, and his final three for the present – Twice Upon A Time (2017), Increase! (2024) and this Christmas particular.

• Pleasure’s full title within the credit was given as Pleasure Almondo, not the primary time Moffat has used a literal translation – see The Return of Physician Mysterio (2016).

• Due to the bi-generation in The Giggle (2023), presumably the entire time the fifteenth Physician was caught in that resort with Anita, David Tennant’s 14th Physician was sitting round along with his trotters up retired at Donna’s home – with a spare Tardis on-hand.

Subsequent time

Physician Who will probably be again within the New 12 months! Ncuti Gatwa! Varada Sethu as new companion Belinda Chandra! Millie Gibson as Ruby Sunday for at the very least a few of it! Mrs Flood returns! Showrunner Russell T Davies says it’s coming “earlier than you suppose” and contains “loads of scares”, “a planet within the far future that’s completely terrifying” and a Tardis journey to Miami. See you then. Have a terrific new yr!